New Year's message

This is my New Year’s message. It is entitled “6 stinking habits to get rid of”. I could have called it “6 stinking habits to watch out for”. But, this alternative title may imply that one has yet to be infected by any of the stinking habits and thus has to watch out for them. Should it be taken this way, then it is inappropriate. You see, most of us, I believe, are able to identify with some, if not all, of the stinking habits that I am going to list down for the simple reason that we are guilty of having committed them at some point in our life. So, there is nothing to watch out for as if it is coming our way like a flu virus. It should, with some urgency, be gotten rid of - like weeds or piled up garbage. So, here are the 6 stinking habits we should get rid of in the coming New Year. Or, if you like, habits to watch out for if you have yet to be infected by them.

1) Me-First habit. Let’s face it, this habit is the first sin of the created Universe. The story of the supremacy of self-interest is as old as Adam and Eve. The world’s system runs on this me-first philosophy. Politics is all about “how will this decision influence my poll rating?” Movie and music stars are all concerned about how popular they are to their fans. And even ministers of God sometimes fall into the trap of self-elevation at the expense of God-glorification. So, no one is exempted from this stinking habit Numero Uno. When we don’t get our way, or when others got their way instead of us, we sulk, sulk and sulk. Some sulk discreetly; others sulk publicly. One way or another, our attitude undergoes a vegetation transformation into a “bitter gourd”. Envy is one avenue this habit rears its ugly head. Deep inside, we can’t stand it if our neighbor is more successful than us. Somehow, some thing inside of us dies a little. Somehow, we get derailed by jealousy and rage. Apostle Paul once said that we should “rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.” (Rom. 12:15) With all honesty, it is easy to mourn with our neighbor. Misfortune invites willing and easy company. But, can we sincerely rejoice with our neighbor? For some, we seethe with envy when good fortune befalls on others and not us. Envy has its roots in self-glorification and that’s why we have to guard against this insidious habit. It’s easy to say at this point that we should put others first and ourselves second or a distant third. Words are like air molecules. They come and go like a draft. And we are usually unmoved by it. So, let’s go beyond words (although words would inevitably be used here). Let us hatch a murder plan. Let us plan the death of self. Let’s be self-killers. Paul calls it “self-crucifixation”. Jesus calls it “self-denial”. I call it “self-cremation”. Whatever you call it, I think you get the point. And the point is to die to self and to live for Christ daily. The process calls for daily discipline and a watchful spiritual eye to monitor our thoughts, our speech and our actions. If we resolve this coming New Year to make this important change, one little victory at a time, on a consistent daily rate, I am sure that by the end of next year, our life would then be deserving of the praise that comes from our God for it is written in John 5:44, “How can you believe if you accept the praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?”

2) Count your curses habit. This is the opposite of counting your blessings. This is a negative outlook. While the optimist sees the glass half full, the person inflicted by this stinking habit asks, “Where’s the glass?” People with his habit are generally grim-reapers or bad news harvesters. They are unable to see the positive side of things because they do not have enough faith to believe in it. They are prone to catastrophe-ize all events that have the potential to turn sour. They are blindsided by the negatives to even bother to accentuate the positive. As such, this is one habit that you have to eradicate because it determines your ultimate response to all situations you face in your life. Let us accept that bad things will happen, without giving us an advance notice. You cannot RSVP tragedies because they issue you no invitation or warning. But, just like there is immense power captured in a single atom, there is awesome strength embedded in one choice. Do not underestimate the choices you make on a daily basis. Where you are today is the result of the choices that you have been making all this while. You can therefore do a forensic tracing of all choices made thus far and each of these choices will add up to the sum of who you are and where you are today. Thus, from an atomic point of view, you can harness the power of free-choice by responding in a way that progressively brings you out of your trial instead of sinking you deeper into it. Negative thoughts darken the chambers of your soul. It drains your spirit and saps your resolve. Beloved, take charge of your life and deals positively with adversity. Do not surrender to your trials; remaining helpless in the sea of trouble. Instead surrender to God and put your hope in Him. Let God preserve your spirit, lift you up and deliver you out into the light. Remember, as long as your lamp continues burning, the darkness will make their timely retreat. So, this is the take-away lesson in regards to this habit: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Roms. 15:13)

3) The dog ate my homework habit. Did the dog really eat your homework? Or maybe, you didn’t perform well in school and you didn’t want to show your parents your poor results? So, we needed to blame the poor dog? This habit will make us a finger-pointing marksman. We are always right and the blame lies with everybody but ourselves. For people infected with this habit, saying sorry is truly the hardest word. It is as if saying sorry will bring about a full-blown emotional tumor. Let’s humble ourselves this coming New Year. Let us own up to our flaws. Let’s take personal responsibility for our actions. Stop passing the buck or blame. Let’s direct the interrogation lamp on ourselves and let God search our heart. For the heart is above all, deceitful. When something goes wrong, and it sometimes will, we have to look within ourselves to find the cause. Even when the fault lies with others, we cannot overlook the fact that we may have contributed to the failure. We have a part to play in a wrong turn, a misadventure or an accidental letdown. Take a marriage for example. Who can remain blameless in a fight, an argument or a separation? Any takers? I realized that a marriage can survive anything, any trial, if one spouse musters the courage to shock the other by admitting to his/her faults and saying sorry for it. A sincere apology after some quiet reflection may be the hardest thing to say but it is a definite step towards reconciliation. Basically saying sorry turns the attention on our flaws and this tactical change is crucial in keeping anger and unforgiveness at bay. Something magically lights up when we see the wrong in ourselves and this mindset will keep us from focusing zealously on the wrong of our spouse. When the focus changes, we will then be able to deal with our faults, to realize how our actions have hurt our loved ones, and to express genuine remorse thereafter. The next natural step after feeling the convicting sting of regret is to say “I’m truly sorry.” A wise man once said, “Few things are more powerful than having the common sense, wisdom, and strength to admit when you’ve made a mistake and to set things right.”

4) Leave it till tomorrow habit. This habit is self-explanatory. Although tomorrow will surely come, it is not a guarantee that we will accomplish what we need to do today by tomorrow. Beloved, do not have the delusion that tomorrow will be longer than today. In fact, logically speaking, if we leave what we need to do today till tomorrow, then the time we have tomorrow will be very much constraint, or limited. More work for tomorrow will mean less time to finish them. And less time to finish them will mean that we risk putting off tomorrow’s workload to the day after tomorrow. Well, I think you get the point. The heart of this stinking habit is procrastination. And we procrastinate for many reasons. We procrastinate because we are avoiding certain outcome out of fear. We procrastinate because we lack guidance, directions or goals. We procrastinate because we are plain lazy or self-indulgent. Or maybe, we are just too weak-willed, discouraged or disillusioned with ourselves to take the next step in life. Whatever the reason, this is a bad habit that we have to deal with directly. As there are numerous reasons for why we procrastinate, there are also varied solutions. For this letter, I will only single one out and that is: Seizing the opportunity! We will only walk down this corridor of life once and most opportunities will only knock once. If we do not seize them as they come by, we may have lost them forever. But in order to seize it, we will need to know what we want in life. What is our goal now? What do we wish to accomplish? What is our passion? Do we have an unfulfilled wish? What activity gives us the most joy? Take the first few days of the New Year to reflect on this. If something is worth doing, and is within our budget and ability, then stop putting it off to the next day, the next year or the next life. Beloved, let’s not live for the past but live for the future. We cannot change our past, our mistakes and our failures. We cannot change how people look at us for what we did in the past. The opportunities in the past have all passed; so stop allowing your past to plague your present and to limit your future. The aim is to start afresh and anew. The New Year is waiting for you to fill it up with meaningful goals. If you hear God’s voice calling you to make that commitment for change, then do it. God’s calling for you in the New Year is to embrace life, to advance forward, to take the risk, and to change lives. For it is said that, “when we choose to seize our divine moments, we create an environment where others are unleashed to fulfill their God-given potential.” So, let’s start a chain-reaction, initiate a transformation, and make a difference. And when the time comes for us to leave this world for good, we would have this anchored assurance that we have lived a good life, one that God and our children can be proud of.

5) Life’s like a box of chocolates habit. When Forest Gump uttered this now famous line in the self-titled movies many years ago, no one knew exactly what he meant except that life is generally unpredictable because you never know what you’ll get. My own interpretation of this winsome line is his: life is not limited to the perceptual confines of our five senses. In my view, life is more than what our eyes can see, what our ears can hear, and what our hands can touch. Atheists who use science to call for the end of religion has this to say to sound off the death knell, “the materialist universe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.” (Richard Dawkins) We must guard against such thought because it is one-sided, dogmatic and tainted. Atheists’ scientists will not admit that science cannot explain a lot of things. The beginning of the universe (or cosmos) is still a mystery, an impenetrate-able one. The erratic and at the same time synchronized behavior of a pair of subatomic particles are another mystery that still escapes rigorous scientific observation. The theory of neo-evolution has yet to close the gap between us and our next primate cousins. The link is still missing. Neuroscientists are still unable to come up with a coherent concept of our consciousness, our experiences and our varied emotions, and questions about how is it that the whole of our personalities is much greater than the sum of our parts still remain largely unresolved. Even an activity as simple as reading, involving various integral section of the left hemisphere of our brain, is immensely complex. How the words on a page get registered on our retinas and processed at the back of our left hemisphere (occipital temporal poles) and converted into perceivable meaning that can move us to tears are too complicated for anyone to fully understand. So, life is full of mysteries. What we cannot see doesn’t mean it does not exist. Some of these mysteries will never be solved and we have to accept that someone out there knows and holds the answer. Maybe, we are not created to solve them all. Maybe, we have to admit our limitations. Maybe, the universe is created to be enjoyed and not to be dissected into discrete parts for research. And without faith, and a sense of awe, we can never fully embrace life and enjoy what life has to offer. A famous theologian once said, “He who enters the sphere of faith enters the sanctuary of life.” Indeed, the parallel thought for this is: And without faith, it is impossible to please God.

6) Grudge bearers habit. Of all the bad habits listed above, this is the most vicious and condemning. I have learned that we have to travel light in this world. Carrying a grudge and nursing it will only burden us in our life’s journey. We have to let go and let God deal with our hurts, our pains and our disappointments. In this life, we are sure to get hurt. Our loved ones may betray us. Our close friends may abandon us. Our pastors may disappoint us. No one is perfect. So, we need to come before God this New Year and surrender all our hurts and pains. Beloved, forgiveness breaks the curse that binds us to a life of bitterness and retributive rage. Forgiveness is an act of love. No one is so unlovable who doesn’t deserve our forgiveness. There is always a quality in others that is redeemable and we can always focus on it to forgive them. It is said that forgiveness breaks the chain of causation because he who forgives another, out of love, takes it upon himself the consequences of what the other person has done. As such forgiveness always entails a sacrifice on the part of the person who chooses to forgive. Whatever the injustice or the pain caused to us, we can surely pray for the spirit of forgiveness to take charge of our spirit and to do a purifying work to remove the hurts and pain of the act from our memories. With the passage of time, and with a submitted heart, we can slowly but surely extend the hand of forgiveness; even to those who are least deserving. We can do this because God has forgiven the worst in us. Let me end this letter with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr, “We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.”

Beloved, these are the 6 stinking habits we should eject out of our system. Pray for strength to deal with each one of them at your own pace and time. If we move forward from here and resolve to change ourselves for the better, I trust that in the years to come, we will be more authentic Christians, living the life we have always wanted.

Here’s wishing you all a blessed, victorious New Year 2010.